


Sufficient and Condign

by ladyshadowdrake



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, M/M, Period-appropriate internalized homophobia, That is addressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22903717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyshadowdrake/pseuds/ladyshadowdrake
Summary: Once, when he had been sitting in the cell on the Goliath for weeks already, almost longing for the noose if only it would put a period to the cloying purgatory, Tharkay had whispered back, "I have never loved anyone as I have loved you."What Tharkay said in his own voice was, “Goddamn you, Will Laurence.”
Relationships: William Laurence/Tenzing Tharkay
Comments: 24
Kudos: 219





	Sufficient and Condign

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to eak1mouse over on Tumblr for the patient beta'ing and hand holding and general being-awesome-ing.

Laurence watched Tharkay’s shoulders rise and fall as he took in deep breaths of the wet air, looking over the lush valley. They were slowly recovering from the harrowing journey across the continent and were beginning to fill out their clothing again. Tharkay had never been especially broad in the shoulder, but the difference was noticeable. Laurence found in himself an ache to trace the line of Tharkay's spine down the curve of his back, and had to look away for a moment to reaffirm control of his hands. 

Their small camp was set up a mile behind them, a bare handful of tents and a pit dug for a cooking fire. Temeraire was out scouting the valley for the perfect location for his new pavilion. They were on only a short visit to the valley they had claimed on their initial journey and would need to return Tharkay to Sydney soon, but once he had gone, Laurence and Temeraire would take up permanent residence. Laurence thought it unlikely that Temeraire’s pavilion would be up before the winter set in, but they would make a good start of it at least. 

“There is still time for you to change your mind,” Tharkay said, twisting just slightly to look over his shoulder at Laurence.

Laurence started guiltily. Having thought himself unobserved, he had been examining Tharkay unabashedly. He coughed to clear his throat. “Temeraire and I shall do very well here,” he said.

Tharkay nodded once. “The journey will be quiet without you and Temeraire aboard. I will miss your noise after a time, I imagine.” With Tharkay’s face still turned to the side, Laurence could see the ironic twist of his lips.

“You needn’t,” Laurence said softly. So softly that Tharkay would not be required to acknowledge the statement if he did not wish.

Surpassing all hopes, as Tharkay was wont to do, he turned around to face Laurence. He tilted his head curiously for Laurence to continue, lopsided smile speaking to some private amusement. “Oh?”

“You could stay. It will not be as exciting a life as we have known these last years, but there is work enough to keep even men such as ourselves busy for several lifetimes. There is peace here, Tenzing, and what home I could offer you, I would do so with…” Laurence stopped and swallowed. “I would do so with the greatest pleasure.”

Tharkay’s smile fell from his lips. His eyes were sharp and bright everywhere they touched Laurence’s face, ferreting out his secrets, catching the hitch of Laurence’s breath in his throat, the slight tremor that Laurence felt in his limbs but hoped did not show. He hadn’t meant to make the offer in anything other than the spirit in which Tharkay had invited him to a life of privateering. It was meant to be an option with no great weight applied to acceptance or refusal, but Laurence had made a mess of it.

“I have an obligation to report to my employers,” Tharkay said finally, but his tone was strange with reluctance, some warning that Laurence could not decipher.

“Of course,” Laurence said. He should have left it there, but he had grown as reckless with the conventions of society as he had grown reckless of his own person. He ignored the warning and continued, “You could return, after. Whenever you are free to do so. You would always be welcome.”

Tharkay softened enough to make Laurence’s heart skip. He nodded. “Thank you, Will.”

Laurence breathed out his relief and took a tentative step forward. “I should not speak any further,” he said, “and yet, I find that I have grown weary of letting things lie until they fester or are dead in their graves. Tenzing, I cannot express to you the depth of my gratitude for your presence in my life these years. There are a multitude of sins that can be laid, justly, at my feet –”

“Will –”

“Most I do not, I cannot regret. One for which I could never reproach myself is the sin of loving you. If you would allow it.” The word  _ love _ tried to stick in his throat. It was uncomfortable even to think, made taboo by his upbringing and that taboo reaffirmed by every profession of his life. He straightened his shoulders. He had faced down enemy weapons, physical privation, the condemnation of his own people, and the looming shadow of the noose without breaking. He could do at least that much for a man who had stood beside him through the worst of it.

Laurence stood, stripped naked without a stitch of clothing cast aside, his breath shivering out of his chest, vital organs exposed as surely as if he’d been laid open to the bone.

Tharkay’s expression froze, the seemingly omnipresent smirk vanished, and his shoulders went tight under his jacket. He had pulled himself up to his full height and his eyes were as opaque as they had been all those years ago when Tharkay had been a suspicious stranger leading them into the desert.

Laurence did not know exactly what he expected of the confession, though he had spent many hours turning it over in his head, imagining every reaction. In his mind, Tharkay had laughed softly and called him an idiot, and the remark had passed as though it had been a joke. He had kissed Laurence with that smile on his face. He had gently reminded Laurence of his attachment to Sara Madden, and Laurence’s own attachment to Jane Roland. He had swung into Laurence’s lap without a word, mouth tasting of honeyed wine and smoke. He had said only that it was illegal, and they had spoken nothing more of it. In the depths of Laurence’s depression, Tharkay had struck him across the face and called him a sodomite and a pervert. Once, when he had been sitting in the cell on the  _ Goliath _ for weeks already, almost longing for the noose if only it would put a period to the cloying purgatory, Tharkay had whispered back,  _ I have never loved anyone as I have loved you _ .

What Tharkay said in his own voice was, “Goddamn you, Will Laurence.”

Laurence jerked back as though struck, and Tharkay turned on his heel and walked away. One hand lifted of its own accord, as if Laurence could possibly have the right to put his hand on Tharkay in any circumstance now, and then it dropped to his side. He had not really thought that Tharkay would walk away from him. Even if his affections had not been returned, he would have – indeed,  _ had _ staked his life on the certainty that their friendship would never be in jeopardy from it.

Tharkay appeared briefly, silhouetted by the sun sinking toward the horizon as he crested a hill, and then he was gone. Laurence remained, staring after him. He felt strangely numb, but also swamped in disbelief. Any moment, he would wake up and find himself sweating in the heat of the Australian morning, Tharkay a familiar sleeping presence at his side, separated from him only by a few feet and a tent pole. In a moment, he would shake his head and the world would right itself, and he would be staring at Tharkay’s shoulders having never spoken at all.

The world did reassert itself, eventually. A shadow passed over him, and then Temeraire’s weight came down to earth as gently and quietly as a dragon of some twenty tonnes could manage.

“Laurence? Have you been here all this time? I looked for you back at the camp.”

Shuddering, Laurence turned to face Temeraire. He had stretched out to his full length and was settled with his forearms laid out neatly before him. Temeraire glowed in the sunset, looking healthier than he had in weeks with some of his weight already returned and his hide no longer gray with dehydration or dulled by the red dirt. He stretched his neck, peering into the distance.

“Where has Tharkay got to?” he asked. “I have brought a very nice cow back to camp for our supper. Gong Su has already begun to roast it, and it does smell so very nice.”

Laurence let his breath out slowly. If Tharkay had returned to the camp, Temeraire would have known. He checked the position of the sun and realized that it had been hours. Tharkay would have returned already if he had meant to. Laurence was now in the position of having to explain the situation to Temeraire. To his shame, he considered lying. He could say only that Tharkay had decided he would need to return to Sydney immediately to go about his business and had wanted some time alone. It would be a flimsy excuse, but one that he could make believable. Tharkay was a consummate wanderer, and it would not be the first time he had left them with little or no notice.

No. No, he could not do it. If he had dredged up the courage to make his confession to Tharkay, he could do no less for Temeraire. He unlocked his legs, feeling suddenly the ache of remaining in one position for so long. He more stumbled to Temeraire’s foreleg than walked. Temeraire looked down at him curiously but said nothing as Laurence hauled himself up to the comfortable crook of Temeraire’s arm.

After a long moment of silence, Laurence said, “He has gone, Temeraire.”

“Where has he gone  _ to _ ? We shall set aside his dinner for him. I am sure Gong Su may keep it warm.”

“No, Temeraire. No, he has gone back to Sydney, I expect. From there, no doubt, he will take passage on the first ship that will take him back to Turkey, or as close as he can get.”

Voice mired in confusion, Temeraire protested, “But Laurence, we should have gone together in two days, and even then, we shall return to Sydney faster than he can on foot.”

“I’m afraid that it is unlikely we shall ever see Tharkay again, Temeraire,” Laurence said quietly.

Temeraire’s weight shifted under him. “I do not understand,” he said finally. He sounded equal parts confused and betrayed.

Laurence admitted, if only to himself, that he felt much the same, however little he deserved to feel betrayed when he had certainly been the betrayer. He petted the side of Temeraire’s neck as much for his own comfort as Temeraire’s. “I have… Temeraire, I have stretched the bond of mine and Tharkay’s friendship too far, and it has snapped. I am sorry, my dear. I know you are fond of him.”

“He has hurt you,” Temeraire said abruptly. His tone took on that deep note of outrage that Laurence had heard more than once on his behalf. “I will go and fetch him at once!”

“Temeraire, please do not!” Laurence stood hurriedly and put both hands on Temeraire’s cheek. “I beg you, Temeraire, I  _ beg _ you,” he said, and realized that he  _ was _ begging. 

He had not begged for a thing in his life, not even as a child when his father had forbidden him the sea. Then, he had simply made a run for the nearest harbor, and again when he’d been caught and taken back, and then again after he'd been caught a second time. Each time, he’d made it closer to the port, until the last, when he’d been saved from life aboard a fishing vessel by virtue of a family friend seeing him in line to sign on and taking him home. After that, his father had finally consented to buying his commission with the Navy. In all that, Laurence had never once begged.

This was not a situation he could bull his way through. He had, through his own foolishness, destroyed one of the few remaining friendships he had left to him.

“I beg you not to go after him,” he said once he’d gotten his breath under control. A breeze on his face left a cold sting on his cheeks. He put a hand up to his face, and his fingers came away wet. He wiped the damning tears away quickly and sucked in a breath. “Temeraire, it is I who have done the injury. You must not.”

“Laurence…” Temeraire’s voice trailed away. It was as small as Laurence had ever heard it. “Laurence, this is Tharkay. He has been with us across deserts, and into war, and brought us all those ferals when we needed them. Although Arkady is certainly as much trouble as anything, no one can deny that we would not have gotten the garrison out of Danzig without them, and they were helpful during the invasion. Besides that, Tharkay came all this way to Australia with us. He cannot mean to be gone forever.”

The list was very nearly an exact duplicate of the one Laurence had repeated to himself many times over. It had grown steadily over the years, encompassing dozens, hundreds of actions that had seemed, to be clear indications of Tharkay’s affections. He had obviously been dreadfully mistaken. The largest part of him wanted to put the entire thing to rest, to be able to give Temeraire the same subtle cues that a gentleman in polite society would take as an immediate and permanent moratorium on any further discussion of the situation.

He owed Temeraire much more than that, and they were far beyond the point that Laurence might expect, or honestly wish for Temeraire to be anything other than exactly what he was. He reached up to scratch at the ridge above Temeraire’s eye. It had been years since Temeraire had been small enough to do so properly, but he still leaned against Laurence as much as he could. His head alone was many times larger than his entire body had been when he had been small enough to curl up in Laurence’s lap.

“Temeraire, I have… I have violated Tharkay’s trust and pressed upon him in a way that no one with any decency would have done.” Even to himself, the garble of his language was confusing. “I have confessed to certain… certain inappropriate feelings and put him in an untenable position. I cannot hold it against him that he wishes to put distance between us.”

“I do not understand how you could have feelings toward Tharkay that were inappropriate. Unless you meant to steal his capital or some treasure, but I do not see how that could be, when you will not even sell my talon sheaths for capital of your own, and anyway, Tharkay does not have any treasure that I know of, and you do not like to steal.”

Despite himself, Laurence found a laugh drawing up out of his chest. Trust Temeraire to have his priorities all neatly in order. “It is nothing of that sort, Temeraire. I have come to regard him… as.” He swallowed hard, heat flushing up his neck and face to his hairline. “As a man might regard a. That is, not precisely as, but… as, perhaps, a man might feel for a woman.” He gasped the last out, hiding his face against Temeraire’s cheek.

“How should that be wrong at all?”

It was strange, feeling Temeraire’s jaws moving against his chest, the ghost of teeth pulling at his clothing, the warmth of his breath as his voice rumbled out to make Laurence’s whole body vibrate. Yet, he could not have felt safer than where he was, tucked tight to Temeraire’s jaw.

“Aside from the great many moral implications, it is quite illegal,” Laurence said, and almost laughed again. After treachery, the idea that he should be concerned about the legality of loving Tharkay  _ was _ laughable.

“Well, that is perfect nonsense,” Temeraire said confidently. “Government does really have some very strange notions on what should and should not be legal. I cannot see how they should have any say whatsoever in who you might choose to mate. In the breeding grounds, there were two male reapers who mated each other, and Perscitia will not mate with anyone at all, though Loyd was always after her about it, of course."

That was news to Laurence, but, as astonishing as it was, he also found that he could not be terribly shocked. He had become used to Temeraire casually upending his view of all the world.

“Be that as it may, White Hall would be only too happy to charge me with it.”

“Well, they may try,” Temeraire said with perfect unconcern. “But surely he will return, Laurence. Taking the cure to the dragons in France was illegal, and Tharkay chose to come here with us all the same. I am sure that we will return to camp and he will be there already. Oh, it should be splendid if you and Tharkay were to mate, Laurence. He would not ever seek to take you away from me, and he could stay and be a member of my crew. That way, he would never want to go to another dragon, and you would not ever need to be married.”

Despite everything, Laurence blushed at Temeraire’s casual rearrangement of his life. Temeraire was so sure that Laurence almost felt that hope himself, could see that possible future with Tharkay always at his side on Temeraire’s back. It would be a neat solution, and Laurence could not see that either of them would ever be cast under suspicion.

All the same, he was not in the least surprised when they returned to the small campsite and did not find Tharkay sitting at the fire. Gong Su was alone, turning a side of beef over a roaring blaze. Emily Roland had been tasked at a second fire pit some short distance away, minding the rest of the cow and looking thoroughly bored with the duty.

Laurence excused himself to duck into the tent he had shared with Tharkay for the last week. Their cots remained, the small space as neat as ever it had been, but Tharkay’s rucksack and blanket were missing. Laurence sat roughly on his own cot and stared across at the emptiness. They were both used to traveling rough and sleeping on whatever reasonably level surface they could find, but with the trip being essentially one of leisure, they had brought thin mattresses stuffed with straw for a little added comfort. Tharkay’s had not been beaten out and still showed the ghost of his body.

Laurence felt an almost overwhelming urge to curl up in the indent left in the mattress, as if Tharkay’s body heat might remain. As if Laurence had any right to even the illusion of Tharkay’s touch. He raked his hands roughly through his hair, pulling strands of it out of the leather strap he’d tied it back with that morning. He took in a deep breath.

This was not the first time that he had been disappointed, and it was not the first time that he had lost a friend. He still had Temeraire, and, no matter how angry or disgusted Tharkay was, Laurence did not think it was likely that he would report the incident. Laurence was in a better position than most men who might have found themselves in a similar situation.

Pulling his hair loose, he tied it back up, straightened his clothing, and left the tent.

“Where is Mr. Tharkay?” Roland asked curiously.

Laurence hoped that he did not flinch, though he certainly felt the quiver of it in his gut. “Mr. Tharkay has decided to travel ahead of us. He has business with his employers that can no longer be delayed, and I believe that our own stay here will be extended some few days. Excuse me, Roland.”

Temeraire was on the far side of the camp, raking his claws anxiously though the grass, leaving deep gouges. It hurt Laurence’s heart to see it. He set a hand on Temeraire’s forearm.

“My dear, I am sorry.”

“No, Laurence, it is I who am sorry. I never would have thought that Tharkay would prove so faithless.”

Laurence did flinch then, but Temeraire had kept his voice as quiet as a dragon might, and a quick glance toward the camp showed Roland and Gong Su in conversation over their respective fires.

“Temeraire, no, you mustn’t think so. The blame for this rests solely on me. Please do not think ill of him. And, Temeraire, I must ask that you do not speak of this to anyone else. The danger to his life is very real.” He did not mention the danger to his own life, which was negligible as far as he could reason out. Though Tharkay had thoroughly rebuffed Laurence’s advances, he did not have the same protections that Laurence did, and there were many who would be only too happy to jump on this excuse to put him out of the way.

“I understand, Laurence. Only, I would not like you to be lonely.” He looked plainly distressed in the weak firelight.

“I shall never be lonely, my dear heart, so long as I have you.”

~*~

Through the whole of their long journey across the ocean, the sinking of the  _ Allegiance _ , their reliance on the hospitality of the French, and the marooning and subsequent island-hopping, Laurence had mourned the loss of Tharkay’s implacable calm and his almost uncanny ability to find his way across any terrain and engineer the most unlikely of rescues.

Yet, it was in the quiet and relative peace of evenings at rest that he missed Tharkay the most. He was grateful for Granby’s company, and, for all the misfortune of their crossing, their travel from the coast to the capital city had been nearly pleasant in comparison to many of their previous journeys. It felt almost a sort of cruelty to wish that Tharkay had been with them when so many of their shipmates had not made it out of the water, but he couldn’t help but think of how fascinated Tharkay would have been by the local customs and the new territory.

Tharkay, he felt sure, also would have found the amusement in Granby’s current predicament. Laurence could clearly imagine the sparkle in his eyes and the twist of his lips as they stood well away from prying ears to lament Iskierka’s scheming.

“She will have her way,” Laurence said. Considering that not entirely dissimilar scheming had landed him as an adopted Imperial prince, he could not be as horrified by the situation as Granby might like.

“Oh, hell, Laurence,” Granby said finally, exasperated. “I am an invert.”

Laurence stared at him, entirely at a loss. He had shipped out with more than a few seamen and officers who indulged regularly in the company of their fellows. After a nearly fatal experience under a captain who resented being rejected, Laurence had learned to recognize the inclination in his shipmates, but he had never suspected it of John for a moment. 

Laurence would not have called himself an invert, and, before Tharkay, he had thought the tendency to be an indulgence undertaken only for lack options. There had been Edith, after all, and Jane. But there had also been nights in the darkness of a ship at sea, stifling his breath against a fellow officer’s coat, his hand moving fast and clumsy on a member that was not his own, his release spilling over another man’s calloused hands. He had always known it to be a sin, but so much that society demanded was similarly a sin, and he had never thought it the worst a man might commit. The legality had always concerned him more, and even that no longer held sway on his conscience. 

After he had made post, he had not felt it was appropriate to indulge with his juniors, and he had not thought he would miss it. In fact, he had not missed it, not until he had idly noticed that Tharkay would be of just the right height to fit his head neatly into the curve of Laurence’s neck without leaning.

Next to him, Granby was painfully still, waiting for Laurence’s judgement. Laurence emptied his lungs into the night air. “You are a braver man than I,” he said softly.

Granby jolted in obvious shock. “Laurence? No, certainly not.”

Laurence frowned. “I would not have referred to myself as such, but neither am I wholly… normal,” he admitted with a fluttering of anxiety in his gut. Perhaps this was the confession he should have made to Tharkay in that field more than his willingness to hazard his soul. 

“The admiral –!” Granby stopped himself and Laurence flushed deeply. Granby let his air out in a loud rush.

“Laurence, I do not understand. What is an invert?” Temeraire asked, startling them both into remembering that their nosey dragons were eavesdropping.

“It is some nonsense to do with mating,” Iskierka said with perfect disregard for Granby’s uncomfortable spluttering. “Immortalis said we must not speak of it, or they may take our captains away. I think it is all a great fuss about nothing at all. It’s not as though they could have an egg together even if they wanted, and why should it matter otherwise?”

“Oh, lord,” Granby complained lowly, covering his face in abject mortification, as well he might. Iskierka had just casually given away the secret of not only her own captain’s illegal activity, but of another’s as well.

Laurence had never been put in such a situation on land. Onboard ship, one simply did not notice another man’s indiscretions as long as they were not personally witnessed in full light with no room for misunderstanding, reported by a witness, or admitted to by the perpetrator. Laurence had himself benefitted from that polite blindness dozens of times. 

He had just been told, quite plainly, of the certain commission of a crime, and one that he would have happily engaged in with Tharkay if given only half a chance.

He shivered, suddenly,  _ sickeningly _ aware that the man he had been before Temeraire would have felt honor-bound to report the crime and see Granby and Little both hang for it. “I could envy you,” he said hoarsely.

For a terrible moment, there was complete silence, and then Granby reached over and tentatively clasped one hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry, Laurence.”

Laurence straightened up, dislodging Granby’s hand. “Is there no way you can bend yourself to it, John?” he asked, wrenching the conversation back to their present situation and banishing the ghost of Tharkay standing silently on his other side.

~*~

Temeraire had sounded odd when he’d told Laurence that Tharkay had been his friend. Laurence tried to dismiss it from his mind. Temeraire and all the aviators had been strange around him ever since collecting him from that cliff in Japan. The doctor’s orders not to give him details of his life had led to nothing but stinted conversations and odd tones whenever he asked something that he should have known.

All the same, he had felt the truth of it in his chest when Temeraire had said, “Tharkay is your particular friend, Laurence” - with that irksome sort of caution like speaking too loudly or too quickly might make Laurence shatter. If he’d read Temeraire’s reaction correctly, Tharkay was a very important missing piece of his past.

The anticipation grew as he pressed through the tunnel with the Chinese soldiers arrayed around him. He had not had a lot of experience with fighting on the ground, but the close tunnels felt almost like home, like the claustrophobic press of fighting belowdecks. The soldiers around him were mostly women. It was a struggle not to try to put himself between them and the enemy, but they had been vocal about his attempts to interfere and more than willing to shove him out of their way.

By the time they pushed into the small, dirty cave of a room, he had still managed to get himself half scalped, and was positive that the whole of his escort was ready to run him through themselves if it would only keep his Imperial Highness out of their way. On a dirty pallet in the corner was an equally filthy man covered in blood and rags, broken hands held awkwardly over his chest, face swollen but recognizable.

Recognizable and beloved. From one blink to the next, he knew Tharkay and knew himself. Laurence’s heart leapt to his throat. He crossed the room carefully and sank to his knees at Tharkay’s side.

“Tenzing.”

“Will,” Tharkay breathed, blinking up at him in feverish confusion.

There was so very much that Laurence found he wanted to say, but all he managed was, “Can you walk, Tharkay?”

“At this moment, I would oblige you almost anything, but I fear that may be beyond me.”

Laurence did not think he was in any condition to carry Tharkay out bodily, but he would manage it somehow. Getting his arm carefully under Tharkay’s shoulders, Laurence helped him sit up. Tharkay was painfully thin and the scent of him spoke to the unimaginable horrors of his ordeal. Laurence felt the rage building up in him, but he only used that rage to get Tharkay to his feet. Tharkay made a stifled noise of pain as he settled against Laurence’s shoulders, his broken hands getting jostled in the process. The two soldiers who had accompanied him moved forward to help, one getting under Tharkay’s other shoulder, and the other crouching down briefly to take Tharkay’s knees under her arms. When she stood, Tharkay let out an involuntary noise of discomfort that nearly made Laurence snap at the soldier to be more careful.

The cave complex was filling up quickly with smoke by the time they pulled Tharkay, gasping for air, out into the open. Hovering at the cave mouth, Temeraire let out a shattering roar at the first sight of the blood slicking Laurence’s face and Tharkay’s injuries.

“Temeraire!” Laurence called at the first lull in the great noise. His voice was hoarse with the smoke and he was having trouble getting in a full breath. The soldiers who had helped him carry Tharkay from the cave had stumbled away to cough the smoke from their lungs. “Temeraire, take Tharkay!”

“I shall take you both!” Temeraire declared immediately.

Next to Laurence, Tharkay was murmuring feverish denials into his neck. With a sense of incredulity, Laurence realized that Tharkay was, indeed, exactly the right height to tuck under his chin. Clinging to the side of the mountain, Temeraire held out an insistent talon, and Laurence set Tharkay gently into it.

“I know I have no right to ask anything of you, Will, but do not leave me, I beg you.”

Laurence looked into the clouds of smoke billowing out of the cavern, and then down to Tharkay, bleeding and barely conscious. He climbed into Temeraire’s talon, curling protectively around Tharkay as Temeraire lifted them away from the cliffside and into the air. Safe in Temeraire’s keeping and Tharkay alive and breathing beside him, Laurence let his eyes slide closed.

~*~

A surgeon with careful, tiny hands was in the process of stitching the gash in his scalp closed when he’d woken, and another was working on Tharkay, thankfully still unconscious. A wave of nausea had swamped him, and he’d closed his eyes to wait for it to pass, but forgot to open them after, and they were both gone when he woke again. By the time he’d made it out of the tent, General Fela had been well and truly handled, and Temeraire had flatly refused to be reproached for it. Being squashed, he’d informed Laurence, was the least of what Fela deserved, and no one else of their party seemed remotely prepared to gainsay him.

“Oh, but Laurence, I am so happy that you have your memories back again. I suppose I should thank Tharkay for giving them back to you, though I am still cross with him, you know. Only it was so very awkward when you didn’t remember anything at all and I couldn’t even tell you.”

Laurence hastily set a hand on Temeraire’s forearm to remind him that, though they were alone in the pavilion, there were ears all around. “My dear, please.”

Temeraire snorted. “I am not going to say  _ that _ , of course, though I still think it’s very silly. It seems to me that it is Iskierka you should be reminding. She is the one always giving away other people’s secrets.”

“Thank you, all the same,” Laurence said, and then slid down Temeraire’s forearm and moved slowly back toward his tent. His and Tharkay’s tent, rather, as he had refused to allow the other man to be moved. He’d felt strange doing so, knowing that Tharkay most likely would not have approved of the sleeping arrangements if he’d been awake to give his own opinion on the matter. Despite that, he would not be moved to let Tharkay out of his sight until Tharkay himself demanded it.

It was dizzying, having so many memories that were contradictory and yet both true. He was at once only weeks removed from his naval captaincy, and also gone several years to the aerial corps. He had both been present for Temeraire’s hatching and had met him for the first time on a cliff in Japan. He was an officer loyal to King and Country, and a confirmed - indeed, unrepentant - traitor. Reconciling his first meeting with Grandby as a sullen, resentful leftenant and also as a far too-forward captain who treated him as an intimate friend from the word go had been a kind of vertigo that had made him trip over his tongue for several seconds.

But of Tharkay, there was no confusion, no set of doubled memories. It was relaxing to be in the tent alone with him with no need to cover up his own anxiety. That Tharkay was barely awake ten minutes in any given hour was doubtlessly the largest contributor to the ease.

They would be headed back to Peking as soon as Tharkay was fit to travel, and Temeraire had commanded they both receive the best medical care before Laurence had been awake to protest on his own behalf. He was grateful, for Tharkay’s sake, that he hadn’t been given the option to protest.

Tharkay’s hands had been badly mauled, but Laurence had been informed that the breaks had been the more recent of his injuries. There was a chance they would heal straight as long as Tharkay was gentle with their use until they were recovered.

When Laurence pushed the tent flap aside, Tharkay was awake and propped up to a comfortable recline. The surgeon at his bedside was carefully re-wrapping his hands in fresh white bandages. Laurence backed away automatically, but Tharkay’s eyes lifted to meet his, and Laurence froze. He waited uncomfortably for the surgeon to finish her work. She bowed very low to him, thoroughly ignored Laurence’s embarrassed attempts to make her stop, and backed out of the tent without lifting her eyes.

Tharkay struggled to get further upright, clumsy hands pulling at the open edges of his robe. Laurence started forward, and then stopped when Tharkay looked up sharply at the movement.

“I would assist you if you would allow me. I understand, of course, if you do not wish it,” Laurence said into the terrible silence.

“Will…” Tharkay took in and let out a slow breath. “We shall discuss this when there are not so many open ears about. For now, I beg you not to speak of it, and I would be grateful for your assistance.”

Laurence bowed his head. He understood at once exactly what Tharkay was offering him. They would continue as though Laurence had never spoken, and he would have his friend returned to him. And yet, he  _ had _ spoken, and it would remain always between them, shadowing every interaction. Any gesture or word of affection that may have been innocent and acceptable between two other gentlemen must from him always be most unwelcome.

He would take the suspicion and discomfort as his price for having Tharkay’s presence once more, even if he might never again have his trust. He had missed Tharkay, could now remember having missed him, and it would be worth any cost to have him back. 

Nodding without reply, Laurence took the stool that the surgeon had so recently vacated and helped Tharkay tie the robe closed once more. Without being asked, he eased his arm behind Tharkay’s back and pulled him forward so he could arrange the pillows to lie flat. Tharkay rested his head against Laurence’s, breath coming in and out in a controlled rhythm. The smell of captivity and illness had been washed away, and Tharkay smelled of only medicinal herbs and himself. Laurence was careful not to breathe it in too deeply as he helped Tharkay down to the pillows once more.

Tharkay was asleep by the time Laurence pulled away and would never know that Laurence paused just long enough to brush his hair back from his face before withdrawing.

~*~

The legions were preparing to travel, and Laurence had been assured that they would be ready to leave inside the week. After the constant stress of the recent weeks, the peace of the palace was almost smothering. Tharkay had recovered well and was out of bed most hours of the day, though he tired quickly and could not walk far on his own. His hands remained bandaged, and he still could not dress himself without assistance.

Tharkay could have had a dozen body servants for the asking, but neither Tharkay nor Laurence asked. Laurence continued to assist him with getting dressed and undressed and had taken over changing the bandages once the breaks had healed enough that Laurence wouldn’t cause additional damage through clumsiness. Tharkay had born up to Laurence’s attentions without a word one way or the other, and Laurence had been scrupulous not to allow his touch to linger. Tharkay had delivered his intelligence of the war as succinctly as possible and was quiet otherwise, making almost no response to the news of Laurence’s temporary memory loss.

They did not speak on anything of personal consequence, even when quite alone in Laurence’s expansive rooms. Tharkay requested, with some amusement, that Laurence read to him during those times he was too tired to get out of the bed, and Laurence would open the courtyard-facing wall of the room so Temeraire might sit and listen as well. He had never been a poor reader, but Laurence was amused all over again to realize how much of a reader he had become, and how shocked his schoolmasters would be to learn of it.

Once Tharkay could venture more than a hundred yards on his own, he stood casually next to the opened wall panel and observed, “The air feels good today.” 

“It is very nice,” Temeraire agreed. “There are some lovely mountains with a good view of the countryside. Would you like to take a flight, Tharkay?” 

“Perhaps it would be nice to be out in the fresh air,” Tharkay said, though for some reason, his eyes never left Laurence’s face as he spoke. 

As much as Laurence despaired of the false honors of being called an Imperial Prince, he could admit, privately, that being able to suggest a thing and see it immediately done was a heady power. Within perhaps a quarter of an hour, they had hampers of food and warm clothing for the flight, as well as two dozen palace servants ready to accompany them. What they thought they should be needed for was well beyond Laurence, but he drew a firm line that they would take not even a single one of them along. 

“Are you quite sure you’re up for the flight?” Laurence asked gently. Tharkay leaned subtly against his supportive arm as they walked out to meet Temeraire in the courtyard.

“I shall shortly have to handle much longer flights,” Tharkay pointed out. “I may as well become accustomed when we still have the option of returning to a comfortable bed.”

Laurence said nothing more and ignored the deep bows of the palace staff as they passed. These only made Tharkay smirk in amusement. Temeraire put them up very carefully and was overly solicitous of both their comfort and their safety before he would launch into the air. He'd already had bundles of blankets waiting in his talon, which Laurence wrapped around Tharkay despite protests, and they made the short flight to a deserted mountain top in comparative silence.

Three of Temeraire’s escort had risen away from the palace with them. As ordered, they kept off to a discreet distance and landed out of range of even draconic hearing. The palace staff had been flustered and disapproving when Laurence had insisted that they were taking the air in privacy, but he had bulled over their protests through a combination of not understanding the language well and simply ignoring them. He suspected that all two dozen of them were loaded on the escort dragons, just in case they might be needed. The Chinese surgeons had tended to Laurence and Tharkay through their respective injuries had been of the opinion that the fresh air could only do them both good, though the British doctors among the dragons’ crews had been visibly agitated at the suggestion of the flight. When Laurence had made it obvious that they were going despite protests, hands had been thrown into the air in exasperated response. 

“I have often had cause to regret walking away from you and your valley that day,” Tharkay said very quietly after they had settled on a ridge overlooking the valley with the blankets piled between and around them. He looked down at his thickly bandaged hands with his mouth twisted bitterly.

Laurence stilled, aware of Temeraire listening in. “Tharkay, I am owed no explanation. Please do not feel obligated to speak of it.”

“You are quite possibly the most infuriating man I have ever known,” Tharkay said with the softest of laughs. “I did not think that any human being could claim to be a gentleman and actually embody all that means, but you do. It is supremely frustrating when I have built so much of my life on the firm and well-supported belief that English gentlemen are anything but. I suppose I had no right at all to be surprised that you would call loving me a sin, and yet.”

Stomach wringing out under his ribs, Laurence stared at the side of Tharkay’s familiar face. “Tenzing, I did not intend…”

Tharkay lifted one bandaged hand out of his nest of silk, forestalling whatever inadequate explanation Laurence may have offered. He did, after all, consider it a sin. A sin he was entirely willing to carry for the rest of his days, and one he would confess without shame at the gates of whatever afterlife God had ready for him, but it was a sin nonetheless. He was starting to think that did not mean the same thing to Tharkay as it did to him.

“I resented you,” Tharkay said. “When you offered me your hand that night in Istanbul and I took it, knowing full well that I should never get free of you afterward. I certainly desired you before that night, but I think I started to love you then.”

Confused, Laurence forced himself to ask, “If you … if that is so, then why, Tenzing?” He couldn’t make himself elucidate all the ‘why’s he wanted answered, but he doubted that he needed to.

“Because you already own too much of me, William Laurence,” Tharkay said. “And I have valued your friendship and good opinion too jealously to see myself reduced to a shameful secret in your gaze. I could not have survived it.”

“No,” Laurence said lowly. “No, Tenzing, you should never have been that. A secret, certainly. As has been my relationship with others, but I hope I should never need blush for my consideration of a lover’s reputation.”

When he looked over, Tharkay’s smile was not the half-twisted amusement Laurence had come to know so well, but something both softer and sadder.

“After all these years, I do trust that is the truth, Will. And yet, I have also seen you in the depths of self-recrimination, and I know the lengths you will go to punish yourself for any fault, no matter how slight. I would not have been surprised to wake in the morning after a night of your ardent attentions, only to find that you had turned yourself into the authorities for it.”

Laurence flinched away, knowing very well that he would have done no such thing, would never have done it. Caught on a ship and brought up on the charge, he would have confessed immediately, but he would not have turned himself in. “You think me a martyr.”

“I do. I believe you are your own worst enemy more times than not, and I believe that you do not love yourself well, no matter how much those around you may love you. More than any of these things, I believe that you would hate yourself all the more for loving me, and I do not wish to know that man again. I am not entirely confident that I could banish him a second time.” Tharkay hunched into the blankets, refusing to meet Laurence’s eyes. 

At once, Laurence was transported back to that lonely winter, the blood of dozens of enemy soldiers staining Temeraire’s jaws and his own hands. Tharkay’s face as he’d asked, succinctly and without judgement, “ _ What are you doing, Will?”  _ That day in the cave had not been the first time Tharkay had brought him crashing back down to himself. 

“Tenzing,” Laurence said. “I will not deny that my… my sense of self has been assaulted these recent years, but I have made peace with the kind of man I have become. Though I may never lay a hand on you, my culpability in this sin is in no way reduced. I will be judged for this no more or less for having acted on the impulse; indeed, Tenzing, I  _ have _ acted on this impulse before. My… feelings for those gentlemen may not have been what they are for you, but that does not lessen the severity of either the crime or the sin. I do not repent for it, as I feel no guilt over it. I have lost count of the number times I have committed murder, Tenzing. This could hardly weigh on my soul at all in comparison. I struggle to find the ill in an act committed out of love, when so much for which I have been praised has been done out of violence.”

Laurence remembered Granby’s confession and his uncomfortable realization that, despite his own experience with the same crime, Naval Captain William Laurence would have felt compelled to report them and see them hang for it. Indeed, that man may have seen no hypocrisy in the act at all.

“I do not believe that I much like the man I was before Temeraire,” he said. “That man did nothing that was not strictly for duty. He organized his life based on a list of milestones to be reached before moving to the next. It was a progression of logical steps with no passion, and, though he may not have felt so at the time, no conscience of his own. His code was plagiarized, and rigid so he did not have to question it. The only gratitude I can express to him is that his rigid code made harnessing Temeraire a given, and so I have been led to him, and to you, and, indeed, to myself by it.”

Laurence felt himself a little taken aback by his own speech. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized that he had held such feelings of contempt for his former self, and yet his recent memory loss and the sensation of catapulting between who he had been and who he was in truth was a chilling one. Had he wondered, in those miserable months after his treason if his former self would be ashamed by the man he had become? If that were so, the reverse was even more true, and Laurence felt himself slot finally into place, as if this realization was the last piece to make him whole. 

“Then we must both be grateful to that man, for I do not believe I much liked the man I was before meeting you either. He was a cynic, and, yes, a martyr as well. We are a matched set, Will.”

“Would you remain if I were to renew my confession, Tenzing?”

Laurence barely dared to hope as he waited for Tharkay’s reply, and Tharkay did make him wait, staring out over the valley with a distant expression for several long minutes. Finally, Tharkay laughed. It was not a happy sound.

“Even now, with no confession, I feel in myself a sudden desire to be gone.”

Shoulders falling, Laurence felt a deep ache lodge at the base of his throat. “I understand. If you still insist on accompanying us to Russia, I can arrange for other transportation. You need not see me more than is required for the sake of duty, and you may rest assured that I will not ask again.”

“I said only that the desire exists, as it must in a man who has so rarely known anything other than  _ going _ . But no, I will not go. Leaving you the first time was as much a punishment for being foolish enough to believe I might have you in any way other than you wished to be had as it was a protection. If you had come for me, I would likely have stayed even then. I cannot see my way clear of leaving your side again for anything less than you ordering me to do so.”

“I should have gone to fetch him after all,” Temeraire grumbled. “I knew that you could not despise Laurence, Tharkay.”

Tharkay looked back at Temeraire, and then transferred his gaze to Laurence’s face. “I find I must beg your forgiveness several times over.”

“I never thought ill of you for it, Tenzing. There is nothing to forgive,” Laurence said, still going over Tharkay’s words. He was not sure he could find them entirely complimentary, but he also couldn’t deny the joy creeping cautiously through his chest.

“It will likely be many months before we have anything resembling privacy again. If you mean to kiss me, now would be an opportune moment, though I regret I will not be up for much more for some little time yet.” He turned in his blankets to give Laurence a lopsided smile, which Laurence, with no further prompting needed, kissed directly off his mouth. Tharkay tasted of honey and medicinal herbs, and his jaw was wonderfully sharp against Laurence’s palm.

A shadow closed over the sun, casting them in chilly twilight. Laurence pulled back and looked up to see Temeraire with his wing curled protectively around them, obviously interested in the proceedings and looking very smug about it. 

“Well, that is one way to cool a fire,” Tharkay said wryly. “I suppose I must now call myself some kind of polygamist.” 

“Tenzing!” Laurence gasped out, heat flushing over him from chest to hairline so abruptly that he felt sure he must have glowed with it. 

“You are a greater fool than I expected if you think that you are not,” Tharkay said without so much as a touch of embarrassment. He leaned forward to set his comparatively cool forehead against Laurence’s temple, his hands lifting, and then falling as if he’d meant to reach out before remembering the bandages. “I am happy with arrangements as they stand. Or sit, as the case may be,” he said with a gently teasing tone. “And you cannot say that you could ever possibly want it any other way.” 

Looking back at Temeraire’s glittering eye, Laurence felt the heat redouble, but it came more gently. “No,” he said, “I suppose I cannot.” 

  
  



End file.
